Lanois’ Canada

Daniel Lanois concluded the slow, steady cadence of dropping tracks from his new album, Belladonna Nocturne, today, the day of the album’s release. They’ve all been instrumental so far, and this one maintains that mode. It’s the most straightforward of the batch, featuring relatively (though not entirely) unprocessed piano and guitar. The accompanying video takes a cue from the track’s title (“Canadian National,” presumably after the railway), combining snippets of views of roadside Canadian vistas, also lightly processed. Lanois previously released, back in 2005, an album of instrumentals titled simply Belladonna. This one appears to be, in essence, all instrumental as well. Emmylou Harris was listed in the initial announcement, along with drummer Brian Blade and bassist Daryl Johnson, raising the possibility of a more traditional song, but her presence appears to consist of a few moments of highly modified wordless vocalizing, meaning that she doesn’t break the atmospheric spell.